LA QUINTA, FEBRUARY 5, 2004 - This week HDTV Magazine is
on assignment at the La Quinta Resort near Palm Springs at the Tech
Retreat, the annual Hollywood Post Alliance gathering of the best and
brightest in the field of bleeding edge mostly high definition digital
video and cinema. The Tech Retreat is hosted by "Monday Memo" Mark
Schubin and is held every February in Palm Springs.
The meeting was opened today by
HPA
President
Leon
Silverman with a tribute to the late Michael Brinkman of Panasonic
Broadcasting, one of the pioneers of HDTV, who died last year. In his
memory the HPA has set up the Michael Brinkman Scholarship and Mentoring
Fund. Those wishing to contribute will find details at the hpaonline
website.
Next up came the Broadcasters Panel, where the non-intentional, not
planned and not rehearsed exposure of the (not authentic) anatomical
appendage at last Sunday's SuperBowl was still the buzz. Senior VP Bob
Ross of CBS revealed that the network had been prepared to mute out any
offending language during the MTV half-time show with a paid staffer's
finger poised on the button, but that JJ's antics would now require a
whole new standard of readiness. For Sunday's upcoming
Grammy Awards CBS will now time delay
both audio and video by up to five minutes to prevent any further
offending of American sensibilities, not to mention the potentially
hefty FCC fines that are not unlikely to come down during an election
year. Mike Strein of ABC also indicated that they will do likewise for
the February 29th Academy Awards broadcast.
Lots of good news on the HDTV programming front. Fox confirmed their
720p roll-out plans for the fall season, but would not commit to a 2004
roll-out of HD NFL. However, the 2005 SuperBowl will be a Fox broadcast
and I would be surprised if it isn't a 720p production. NBC will be
broadcasting its first NASCAR race soon and hopefully the Olympics as
well (perhaps in part on Bravo HD).
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The two network HD heavyweights, CBS and ABC, will both continue their
coverage of live events in 2004. ABC recently was the HD pool
broadcaster for the State of the Union speech. Look for a significant
expansion in ABC and ESPN live sports presentations this year,
particularly NBA, NHL, and MLB. Even more sports is on the way for CBS
as well with further integration of live 5.1 Dolby Digital audio. CBS is
also hoping to soon be using the first 1080p60 slow motion cameras from
Sony!
Jerry Butler of PBS discussed their current transition from HD Demo
Channel to a full (looped) 24 hour schedule not unlike that of Discovery
HD Theater. PBS has a fair amount of HD programming "in the can" and
even more SD widescreen content which is now looking a great deal better
with the recent addition of a new generation of upconverters.
Not much news here from DirecTV, although it is no secret that between
available bandwidth, compression algorithms, and modulation schemes
something is going to have to give if many more HDTV channels are to be
added. There was also no indication that the corporate hostility toward
the IEEE1394 firewire interface would be changing anytime soon, cable
plug and play agreement notwithstanding. IE: Don't look for firewire
ported DirecTV HD TIVOs anytime soon.
Sean Wargo of the CEA confirmed what Dale has been
preaching here for several years. HDTV is becoming a monster consumer
electronic product with extremely robust sales figures forecast for the
next several years. This will be fueled in particular when cable and
satellite coverage of local HD becomes commonplace. Sales of flat panel
displays in particular are growing rapidly with prices continuing to
plummet.
Our next report will look at some of the new technologies on display
here at The Tech Retreat, including the NFL in HD 3D...
Continued....
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